With a fast quad-core processor, a big, gorgeous display, and features galore, the Samsung Galaxy Note II delivers everything a huge-screen smartphone should. If you want a phone that doubles as a small tablet, it's the best you'll find.

The Galaxy Note II for T-Mobile ($369.99 direct, after a $50 mail-in rebate) is many things, but above all, it's the most phone there is. It gives you more screen, more processor, and more OS than just about any other phone out there. It's also a significant improvement over the first Galaxy Note, thanks to a faster quad-core processor and Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" OS, not to mention a host of Samsung-developed note-taking software improvements. If you think other phones are too small, and prefer something big enough to double as a miniature tablet that (barely) fits in your pocket, the Galaxy Note II reigns supreme. It's the first recipient of our Editors' Choice award for phablets (phones with screen sizes ranging from 5.0 to 6.9 inches).

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Design and ScreenThe Galaxy Note II measures 5.95 by 3.17 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.34 ounces. That's roughly an inch taller and half an inch wider than even big smartphones with 4.5-inch and greater screens. It's just as thin as those, though, which helps a lot. It's made entirely of plastic with the exception of the glass screen. But unlike some other Samsung handsets, the Galaxy Note II looks and feels refined, thanks to the classy, faux-anodized silver finish and a smoked chrome accent ring around the sides. You can get one in either gray or white.

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The star of the show is the 5.5-inch, 1,280-by-720-pixel, Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen. The aspect ratio is 16:9 this time, instead of 16:10 like the first Galaxy Note, which had a slightly higher 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. Either way, the new display is stunning. It's super-bright, with vivid colors and deep blacks, and viewing angles are uniformly excellent. I suppose you could argue that at 267ppi, pixel depth isn't quite as impressive as it is on smaller phones with the same 720p resolution. But rest assured: This screen looks fantastic.

As you can imagine, the screen is large enough for easy typing in both portrait and landscape modes. You even get an extra row of number keys, so you don't have to switch the keyboard mode to enter in digits. There's a hardware Home button below the screen, flanked by Menu and Back capacitive touch buttons. A Wacom-designed stylus is tucked into a slot under the bottom right edge. The stylus supports 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity—four times what the stylus in the Galaxy Note supports.

Given its gargantuan size, the Galaxy Note II is difficult to use one-handed—except that, fortunately, Samsung has already thought of this. To that end, it provides a series of toggles in Settings > One-handed Operation. You can move the dial buttons to the left or right, for example, and position the keyboard and unlock pattern for easier access.

Connectivity and Voice Calls The Galaxy Note II is a quad-band EDGE (850, 1900, 1800, 1900MHz) and dual-band HSPA+ 42 (1700/2100MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi support on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands. I had no problem connecting to a 5GHz, WPA2-encrypted hotspot in our labs. The Galaxy Note II also supports T-Mobile's excellent Wi-Fi calling feature, which taps into any connected hotspot for voice calls whenever there's not enough cellular signal available. For data, I saw excellent download speeds averaging 6 to 12Mbps in midtown Manhattan. But upload speeds struggled to break 1Mbps, and ping times were an awful 1.1 seconds (1,100ms); regardless, it could have been something with the network when I was testing.

Voice calls sounded as good as I've ever heard on a cell phone. The earpiece speaker sounded full, warm, and loud, with no background hiss. I could move my ear quite a bit against the handset and still hear the other party easily, which wasn't possible with the LG Intuition. Transmissions through the microphone were clear and punchy, albeit with a slight amount of noise coming through from the midtown Manhattan street I tested the phone on. Reception was solid.

Calls also sounded clear through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset. Pairing was easy; tap the Bluetooth icon in the notification bar and the phone immediately looks for new Bluetooth devices. The rear-mounted mono speakerphone sounded clear and loud, and should be fine for use outdoors. We expect good things out of the oversize 3100mAh battery; we're still testing battery life and will update this review as soon as we have a result.

Voice dialing deserves special mention. Samsung's S Voice lets you control the Note by voice. You can wake it up by saying Hi Galaxy, double-tapping the Home button, or by choosing your own phrase. You can also enable or disable handwriting mode, which activates when you pull the pen from the device. In addition to voice dialing—which worked fine over Bluetooth in my tests—you can also text, search contacts, navigate, schedule something on your calendar, add a task, start a music playlist, and update Twitter, all with your voice.

Hardware, OS, and AppsUnder the hood is a 1.6GHz quad-core A9 Samsung Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM. Android fans can rejoice, as the Galaxy Note II is the first T-Mobile handset to ship with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" out of the box. Benchmark results were at the top of the class almost entirely across the board; combine Jelly Bean with a quad-core processor and you get one fast phone. The exception was some gaming frame rate tests, the results of which lagged next to the Qualcomm-powered LG Optimus G, the only other quad-core phone available in the U.S. right now. But three separate Optimus Gs overheated repeatedly in our tests, and automatically dialed back screen brightness to cool down, whereas the Galaxy Note II stayed cool to the touch, no matter how hard I made it work.

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Jamie Lendino is the Editor-In-Chief of ExtremeTech.com, and has written for PCMag.com and the print magazine since 2005. Recently, Jamie ran the consumer electronics and mobile teams at PCMag, and before that, he was the Editor In Chief of Smart Device Central, PCMag's dedicated smartphone site, for its entire three-year run from 2006 to 2009. Prior to PCMag, he was a contributing editor for Laptop and mediabistro.com. His writing has also appeared in the print editions of Popular Science, Electronic Musician, and Sound and Vision,...
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